


Avi: a sci-fi ghost story

by Eloarei



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: A little bit of Sap, Artificial Intelligence, Canonical Character Death, Complete, Distrust, Emotional Turmoil, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Macen was dead and he was never coming back. Avitus Rix had nearly come to terms with this fact-- until SAM spoke his name.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently started writing this fic on April 13th, 2017, probably right after I played that mission. (You know, _that_ one.) And then uhhh I forgot about the game for two years and it sat half-finished until I came back recently. Whoops. ^^;  
> I haven't checked but I'd bet money that someone else has written basically this exact same story (because who didn't think this after that mission?). Even so, I didn't want to let it rot forever, so...

He hadn't wanted to believe it. From the moment he awoke on that savage overgrown twilight planet (not fit for turians in the least, but that was another issue), Avitus hadn't wanted to believe that Macen would never be with him again. And yet, it was there in the back of his head, hard and sharp and poking at him every time he let himself give into denial: the fact that Macen was gone. He wanted desperately to believe the best, so it was a painful way to live.

It just... wasn't fair. Losing someone... well, they'd all lost people before. It happened. But he still had the imprint of Macen's face burned into the back of his eyelids from it being the last thing he saw before the deep dark six-hundred-year sleep. And it was so beautiful, and such a stark contrast to when he finally woke and the terror of having to claw himself out of his cryo pod. That it was six-hundred years didn't matter; to Avitus, Macen was there one second, and then the next he was gone forever.

Certainly he appreciated what the Pathfinder had done for him. That is, Pathfinder _Ryder_ , because Macen had been a Pathfinder as well, and he supposed _he_ was now one too. If it weren't for Ryder, he might still be stuck on Havarl, pinned down by violent aliens. Or maybe those Roekaar would have killed him. It definitely seemed a possibility, before Ryder showed up. He appreciated that she went to all that trouble of finding clues about the ark, and met him there when it came time. He didn't think he'd have been able to handle that on his own.

Now, he was in the med bay, his various cuts and bruises being fussed over as if those would stop him from assuming the role of Pathfinder. They wouldn't let the transference continue until both he and SAM had been properly checked out. There was nothing wrong with him, but he was still waiting, probably while some programmers did their best to repair the AI. While he waited, Avitus composed an email to Ryder.

 _Thank you for all your help,_ it began, but it didn't really feel sincere because he was only half grateful to have been dragged out of his delusion of Macen being alive. Closure was supposed to help, but he still felt raw on the inside. He didn't send the letter.

After a while, whoever was in charge decided that both he and SAM were in decent enough condition and went ahead with the transfer.

“How are you feeling?” the technician asked when it was over.

“Fine,” Avitus replied shortly. He felt about the same as before, except for the hint of a headache.

The technician nodded, jotted something down on her notepad. “SAM?” she called out into the empty air around them. “How are you doing? How is your connection with Pathfinder Rix?”

An electronic voice echoed into their comms. “I am fine,” SAM said. “My connection with the Pathfinder is stable.”

“Alright then,” the technician said with a smile, aimed at Avitus. “You're good to go. Come back in for a checkup in a week, please. Until then, let me know if anything needs adjusting. I look forward to working with you, Pathfinder.”

Avitus responded automatically, though he'd never remember what words he said, and left the room to go find his personal quarters, which he'd been shown earlier. He wasn't sure how he felt about his new job as Pathfinder, but now it was fully too late to turn back. And Ryder was right, anyway; it was what Macen wanted.

 _'SAM?'_ he thought, trying to strike up a private conversation with the AI, the way he'd heard other Pathfinders did. There was no response, so he tried again. _'SAM? SAM, report.'_ Again, there was no voice in his head _or_ his comms. For a moment, he considered turning around and going back to the technician, but he thought maybe he just needed some sleep. It had been a stressful few... however long it'd been. Perhaps his brain was too tired to host a proper communication with SAM at the moment.

The Pathfinder's rooms were decadent, compared to the rather cramped sleeping quarters everyone else was given, but he didn't spend much time enjoying them. Instead, he simply locked his door, turned off all alarms and external comms, and went to sleep.

XxX

Avitus woke to an insistent whisper, calling his name over and over. ' _Avi. Avi. Avi.'_

He bolted upright and looked around the room, but even in the low light he could see that nobody was around. The door locks still shined their faint crimson. “Hello?” he asked anyway, but he wasn't surprised when no response came.

Chalking it up to a dream, he stretched and rose for the day, and went to check in with the various people who'd requested his presence while he'd been asleep and ignoring his comms. He checked the status of the teams he'd sent to find more info on the Natanus' jettisoned cryo pods (nothing new yet), re-introduced himself to Tiran Kandros over in APEX, and then worked his way over to Tann's office, because the man had been relentless with his diplomatically optimistic emails and, according to everyone who'd spent any amount of time in the Nexus already, he wouldn't stop until Avitus allowed him to debrief him personally.

“Now, I've already spoken with Pathfinder Ryder and the turian leadership, but I wanted to let you know personally just how much this means to the Initiative and--”

Tann's nasally droning was difficult to focus on, but Avitus was doing his best, until the voice from his dream spoke up again. _'Avi. Boring, isn't he, Avi?'_

Despite trying to remain at attention, Avitus couldn't help glancing around for the source of the voice. Tann hadn't seemed to hear it, and neither had the human woman working on a tablet in the waiting area a few meters back. He returned his focus to Tann, who hadn't seemed to notice his lapse in attention either.

When he was done being plied with bureaucratic propaganda, Avitus excused himself and went to find a communications technician, hoping to find out who had hacked his channel.

The comm tech scanned him, and then ran a more complex diagnostic when the quick scan came back with no results. Even after half an hour though, the young salarian didn't find anything wrong with his comm; there were no openings in the channel, no interference to suggest that anybody had been trying to get in, and no unusual communications logged at all that day.

“Sorry, sir,” the tech said. “I can't find anything wrong with your comm at all. But if it continues to act up, I'll take another look.”

Avitus thanked the tech and left. The situation was frustrating him. It was less that someone had hacked his comm and they couldn't find the person, and more about what the hacker had called him. “Avi” was a personal nickname; only Macen ever called him that, and he didn't like the idea that someone was taking advantage of it to rile him up. If this was the sort of thing he could expect on the Nexus, he wasn't sure he wasn't better off on Havarl.

Of course, he wasn't going to just run away because of some little issue with his comms. He had a job to do, and to that effect he carried on with his day-- keeping an ear open for the hacker's whispering.

Four or five busy hours later, and Avitus had almost forgotten about the voice. He'd also almost forgotten about SAM, until he happened upon Pathfinder Hayjer on the tram between Operations and Habitation. They'd met the previous day, but hadn't had much of a chance to talk.

“Rix! How are you doing? I heard you got your SAM last night. Adjusted to it yet?”

The question wasn't one he was readily able to answer, since he hadn't really had the opportunity to find out. _'SAM?'_ he called in his head, wondering if maybe they'd forgotten to do the neural link. SAM gave no reply, so Avitus shrugged and told Hayjer, “It hasn't given me any trouble, at least.” Then he asked aloud, curious, “Isn't that right, SAM?”

“That's right, Pathfinder,” SAM said over the local short-range channel.

Hayjer laughed. “Well good luck keeping it in line,” he said, his light tone making it clear that he was mostly kidding. “Ryder says hers has started using sarcasm. Although I have a feeling that says more about _her_ than it does about the AI.”

Avitus was fairly certain that SAM wasn't going to start sassing him, although he almost wished it would, if it meant it was responding to him reliably. He didn't think he'd be all that great of a Pathfinder without a responsive SAM. He didn't say this to Hayjer though; instead they small-talked until they arrived at Habitation and went their separate ways.

With the day's hands-on work finished, Avitus retreated to his quarters and spent a while getting a feel for the whole place instead of just the bed. It wasn't as big as the rooms he'd had back on Palaven, either while living with his parents or after he'd moved out on his own, but for a space station it was pretty large, especially for just one person. He wondered if they gave married Pathfinders bigger rooms. Pathfinders with families? Would the planners have allotted extra space for the turian Pathfinder if they knew he was attached at the hip with his second?

Not that it really mattered anymore. What was past was past. The Andromeda Initiative was all about looking forward and building a better future.

After poking around the room a little more and trying to figure out the complicated coffee maker, which had been retrofitted to brew a turian equivalent (pretty common these days; most inter-species ventures were designed with levos in mind, and that clearly extended to Pathfinder room design), Avitus cleaned up a little more paperwork, ordered some dinner, browsed some news vids, and went to bed.

By the time he woke up, he had fully changed his mind about putting the past behind him.

He'd never been the sort of person that dreamed very often. Supposedly, humans and asari dreamed quite a lot, and salarians rarely went a night without dreaming, but he and other turians maybe only dreamed once per year. His last one had been something about his job before becoming a Spectre, inconsequential and uninteresting, but this one-- he could hardly call it a dream at all.

Moment for moment, it was a perfect reenactment of one of his fondest recent memories (if 600 years and some-odd months could be called recent). He and Macen had both gotten some time off from work and were taking a sort of 'stay-cation' in Avitus' Citadel apartment, which was easier than going somewhere else, just in case he was called in on some sort of 'council emergency'. It had been weeks since they'd seen each other more than in passing. The chance just to spend time around one another made it a nice enough memory, but what made it apparently worth dreaming about was when Macen asked Avitus to take a leap of faith for him and move 600 light-years away to another galaxy. Avitus didn't even have to think about it.

“If you're going, I'm going,” he'd said, already imagining what that future might hold.

Macen had grinned, a touch of shyness to it despite how well and long they'd known each other, and how little reason they had to ever be shy around one another. “I'd hoped you'd say that,” he'd said. “This could be a great chance for us. Do something worthwhile, something no one's ever done before. Charting new stars, Avi, can you imagine? Find a big empty planet and settle down there, start a new life together.”

“Maybe even get away from all the politics?” Avitus had suggested. “Sounds like a dream.”

They'd spent the rest of the evening lazing about in bed, describing what their new home would look like. It was a night that Avitus remembered clearly, but maybe not quite as clearly as it was presented in the dream, which made it a little weird.

Weirder still, distressingly so: the entire dream was from Macen's point of view. Avitus could feel his excitement, and his love, the trembling of his heart when they touched, the laughter echoing in his chest as they let themselves let loose. He could hear Macen's voice so strong as it echoed in his head: “I love you, Avi.” Even as the dream faded, the words remained.

“Avi.”

“Love.”

“My... Avi.”

He woke with his eyes stinging as tears leaked from them, as he gritted his teeth against the pain in both his heart and head. “Macen...” he said through his clenched jaw. “I can't... I can't do this on my own. We came here to be together. Now I'm more alone than ever, and they want me to take over as Pathfinder? It's too much.”

The room was quiet, leaving Avitus in total solitude. The door lock still shined faintly red in the darkness. His comms were as off as they could be without ripping them out of his skull. But still, as he cried to himself, curled up in a bed he might have slept in but was never supposed to be _his_ , a comforting voice whispered at him, _'It'll be alright, Avi. I know you can do this. I'll be right here for you.'_

In his grief and his denial, the voice had escaped him before, leaving only words. But now there was no way not to recognize the man he'd loved for years, even through the garbled whisper.

Avitus choked on a sob. “Macen?” He didn't open his eyes, somehow knowing what he wouldn't find despite the counter-evidence ringing in his ears. But he did try to calm himself, to quiet his frantic breathing and slow his heart rate, the better to hear the voice he wasn't sure he wasn't imagining. Regaining control of himself was easier than he'd expected; within just a moment, he felt nearly at peace.

Macen's voice spoke up again and Avitus could tell that it wasn't echoing _around_ him, but _through_ him. _'I'm here, Avi. You don't have to go through this alone.'_

“How?” Avitus asked, the word stuttering as it caught on some last errant breath. He didn't believe in ghosts but he'd just spent months trying to come to terms with the certainty of Macen's death.

 _'I couldn't leave you,'_ Macen's voice said, less a whisper now and more a reassuring murmur. _'This was the best I could do.'_ Avitus felt a light touch on his shoulder, as if someone had set their hand there, and this time he looked, the sensation of touch being that much more visceral and commanding than sound. Of course, nobody was there, and the feeling faded.

“I don't understand,” he said, surprised his voice was steady, surprised he wasn't shaking out of his skin because he felt in his mind that this was madness, was scared that he was losing it, yet was physically very calm and he didn't think he should be. He wasn't well-versed in dealing with trauma, but he recognized that it was a symptom of shock. “Macen, you can't be here.”

 _'I can't_ not _be here,'_ Macen countered, and Avitus was disinclined to disagree, because having Macen near him was all he'd wanted for 600 years (and the superfluousness of hyperbole be damned, because he may not have been conscious all that time, but he still _felt_ it).

Even so, even at a time like this, when he wanted so bad to just believe that Macen was back with him somehow, Avitus had to understand it before he could accept it. “How is this happening?” he asked again. This time there was no response, but he could still feel the presence lurking in the back of his head that in the past few minutes he'd come to consider 'Macen', however illogical it might be. Instead of prying at it, he switched tactics and directed his query at his personal AI, who he really thought should be stepping in if his head was getting hacked. (Because ghosts weren't real, something he was fairly adamant about, and that left few other options.)

“SAM. Is there anybody else in this room, or any other signals going through our comm channel?”

“Negative, Pathfinder,” it responded, through the public short-range channel, as it was wont to do.

That wasn't exactly what he'd wanted to hear, because it left his questions just as unanswered as if he hadn't asked at all, but it fed into the small denial he still harbored, even after the months of trying to turn away from it. _'What the hell is going on?'_ he thought, and though Macen gave no reply, Avitus could still feel that he'd been heard, his question acknowledged and summarily ignored. The very faint buzzing in the back of his head remained as the only sound he could hear, and with Macen's silence it became maddening to the point that anxiety flooded Avitus and he stumbled from bed and out into the corridor in search of some calming white noise.

It was better out there, where he could hear the gentle all-hours commotion of the habitation deck. The guards who stood at the end of the hall gave him a questioning look, surely wondering why he'd emerged in what served as the middle of the night, less than fully dressed, but he gave them a nod and they returned the gesture and went back to chatting at each other.

Leaning against the cool wall, with the sounds of others' lives being lived around him, the anxiety slowly drained away. The fog cleared from his mind and he started to feel properly awake. Maybe that had _all_ been a dream, some sort of identity-confused nightmare, and he hadn't really woken until his feet had hit the floor. Maybe he just needed to get out of his head for a little while.

Or maybe he needed to get into it, he thought, noticing the door to the newly-reconstructed SAM node down the hall. He hadn't visited SAM physically since they'd been brought together; perhaps having a chat with it would set them to rights, or at least satisfy some lingering unease he felt about having it so tied to him. And if what he'd heard was true, SAM was supposed to be able to help balance his internal chemistry, wasn't it? It didn't seem to be doing a great job, if that terrible hallucination just now was any indicator.

The SAM node was bathed in blue light, which emanated from the core that either _was_ SAM or represented it. The little blue orb fizzled pleasantly at the end of the walkway and Avitus approached it.

“SAM,” he said in greeting. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” it repeated. “How can I help you, Pathfinder?”

Avitus thought about it a moment. He wasn't sure what he wanted to talk about. “I just thought maybe we should get to know each other,” he suggested.

“Is there something specific you wish me to know?”

Of all the things he could tell SAM, the only one that felt really important was the one thing he imagined it already knew. “I was Macen's… partner.”

“I am aware,” SAM said, flashing at him as it spoke. “Pathfinder Macen thought of you often.”

Avitus imagined Macen and SAM having conversations in their down time, imagined Macen talking about _him,_ maybe about the life he had been trying to build for them. He cleared his throat, willing the thought to leave him. “I think of him often too,” he replied, ducking his head in some sort of sadness or reverence.  
  
“I am aware, Pathfinder,” SAM said, and it was nothing Avitus wasn’t technically aware of himself, but it made him think.  
  
“So, you can really see my thoughts?” he asked.  
  
There was a short silence, as if SAM was thinking (which didn’t entirely make sense; it processed data at lightning speeds, so any pause was either for dramatic effect or it was processing _a lot_ of data). “In a way,” it answered. “I can tell what you’re thinking about, for the most part. Your emotions, through your biochemical readers.”  
  
_‘So why don’t you respond to me, SAM?’_ Avitus thought, a little bit frustrated, and testing the AI. _‘If you can tell I’m thinking, say something! Why do you leave me here alone in my head?’_  
  
The voice he heard next was neither his own, nor SAM’s.  
  
_‘He’s doing his best, Avi,’_ Macen’s voice echoed, sweetly admonishing, a little laugh on the end of it.  
  
“Macen!”  
  
The blue orb of SAM node flashed at him, but said nothing.  
  
_‘Don’t be too mad at SAM. He’s been having a hard time too.’_  
  
Avitus froze, before he felt a sweltering heat begin to rise up in him: anger; rage. “Who are you?!” he shouted. The echoes bounced around the round room but died quickly. “How are you doing this?!”  
  
“Pathfinder?” SAM asked, seeming wary despite the flatness of its voice.    
  
_‘Calm down, Avi.’_ Avitus could feel a pressure on his arm, as if someone laid their hand there, but when he jerked his head to look at it, nobody was there. The feeling faded as he shuddered away. _‘You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t calm down.’_  
  
“Calm down?” he asked, voice hardly more than a whisper. “How can I do that? I don’t know what’s happening!”  
  
The lights of SAM node flickered, as if in distress. “You seem bothered, Pathfinder,” SAM said. “How can I be of assistance?”  
  
Avitus stared at the orb, then glanced around the room. He didn’t like not having a face to focus on. “That _voice,_ SAM. You don’t hear that voice in my head?!”  
  
The orb shuttered for a moment, like a slow blink. “I’m sorry. As I said, I cannot hear your exact words, only the basic shape of your thoughts. Your physiology, however, appears to be under some stress.”  
  
As the AI said the words, the flight flooded out of Avitus, leaving him feeling drained. Propriety be damned, he found himself slumping down into a heap on the floor there in front of the orb.  
  
_‘There you go,’_ said Macen’s voice, soft and calming and all too familiar despite the span of time since he’d last properly heard it.  
  
But he didn’t _want_ to be calm. This wasn’t the time for calmness. He wasn’t asleep; this wasn’t a dream; somebody was _in his head,_ using Macen’s voice, and did they even know what that meant to him?!  
  
As he waited for the hacker to explain himself, Avitus could almost swear he could hear _thinking_. There was such a heaviness in his mind, a presence that had to be more than a hallucination, and which he was sure a voice hacking into his comms couldn’t manage. There was no breathing, just an oppressive silence that felt like it might and should be broken at any moment.  
  
_‘I’ve missed you, Avi.’_  
  
Avitus felt drained, so he didn’t have the energy to protest quite the way he thought he would have otherwise. He only sighed.  
  
_‘Haven’t you missed me too?’_ Macen asked. _‘I can feel how lonely you are. How hard it’s been these past few months. This past week.’_  
  
“You can’t possibly know,” Avitus said to the concrete floor.  
  
_‘I do, Avi.’_ There was the feeling of Macen shaking his head, and Avitus could imagine him stepping closer, kneeling beside him on the floor. _‘I feel exactly what you’re going through. And I’m sorry, that I haven’t been here to help.’_  
  
SAM spoke over the voice in his head. “Do you require assistance, Pathfinder Rix?”  
  
Gritting his teeth, Avitus pulled himself up off the ground. _‘Of course you haven’t been here. You’re dead,’_ he thought, before turning his back on SAM and telling it, “No, thank you. I think I’m going to go back to bed for a while.” He left the node without a backwards glance; he didn’t need to see that Macen wasn’t standing there, because of course he wasn’t.  
  
“Please let me know if you need anything,” SAM said through their comm connection, as Avitus exited into the hallway and went back to his personal room.  
  
There was a soft silence from where Macen’s voice would have echoed in his head. _‘Dead…’_ he said after a long few moments, like he wasn’t sure what to make of it. _‘I guess that’s right. Yes. I remember what happened. I remember… regretting that I couldn’t see you one last time.’_  
  
Avitus’ throat began to constrict, and he backed up against the door after it locked red behind him. “How…?” He choked on the word, coughing around it. “How could you know that? You’re not a ghost. There’s no such thing. They’re just human superstition.”  
  
As much as he believed that, Avitus found himself _wishing_ this Macen-voice was a ghost, and not just the figment of his loneliness he knew it likely was. It wasn’t that he wanted Macen’s spirit to linger when it ought to be at peace, but to have the chance to talk to him again, to speak aloud all the words of love and longing that had weighed him down since they’d parted…  
  
_‘A ghost? No. No. I remember dying. I remember… the pain of it. But I’m living still, aren’t I? With you, here? In Andromeda. We were going to start a new life together.’_  
  
That they were. They’d spent many nights together musing over the predictions of Andromeda’s golden worlds, what their new home might look like. Would it be like Palaven, full of mountain range and rocky plateau? Or maybe they would settle someplace mysterious and new, like nowhere they’d ever seen before. Avitus remembered admitting in one sleepy pre-dawn moment that it didn’t matter to him, as long as Macen was there.  
  
_‘I_ am _here,’_ Macen echoed, his presence shifting in Avitus’ head, like he was walking from one side of the room to the other.  
  
It simply couldn’t be true. “If you were here, I wouldn’t have been made the Pathfinder,” Avitus said. He raised his head in an instinct to seek Macen’s eyes, but as he glanced around the room it remained empty.  
  
He could feel that the presence was a little agitated, as if trying to parse an unpleasant truth. It didn’t feel like a hacker or a scammer who was annoyed that he wasn’t taking the bait. It felt far more honest. And how he could think such a thing based on a heavy silence, he wasn’t sure, but it was as clear to him as his own emotions-- and perhaps more, given the uncertain state of his feelings then.  
  
_‘That’s right. I gave SAM to you,’_ Macen said slowly. _‘I can’t hear him anymore.’_  
  
Avitus scoffed. _‘It’s right here in my head,’_ he thought, a bitter and sarcastic edge to it. He wanted to like SAM, as his new partner in a difficult job, and as Macen’s last gift to him, but the AI’s existence still carried too many bad memories. The fact that it wouldn’t speak to him internally like the other Pathfinders claimed theirs did--...  
  
...No. SAM _wasn’t_ in his head, he realized. It made its best guesses about his thoughts based on his biochemical levels, but it had none of the intimate connection that was supposed to characterise such a close relationship.  
  
Instead…  
  
Instead, he had Macen. And he _wasn’t_ a ghost, not a lingering spirit.  
  
Avitus’ heart plummeted; his stomach too. Every support system in his body fell flat and heavy in terror and despair, and it left him to feel like he was floating awkwardly above a terrible abyss.  
  
SAM was a true AI, although the Andromeda Initiative officials liked to ignore the fact. Its learning capabilities were unlike anything else. Though it mostly kept to a type of standard personality, that seemed to be of its own preference. There was nothing stopping it becoming someone else entirely. There was nothing to stop it becoming what it thought would most benefit its Pathfinder, symbiotic as they were supposed to be.  
  
And who had SAM known better than Macen? Whose innermost thoughts and feelings? Whose exact physiology?  
  
No one.  
  
Fear gripped him.  
  
“Why would you do this?” he asked. Was he so incompetent, so broken, that SAM thought he needed some mock-up of Macen to help him in his role as Pathfinder? Maybe it was true, but who was the AI to decide to bring him back like _this?_ Even if Avitus needed him. Even if he failed as Pathfinder. If SAM thought this was what Avitus needed, then it didn’t know him very well. And maybe it didn’t know Macen as well as it thought, because Avitus was sure he wouldn’t want his memory used like this.  
  
SAM did not respond, as if he couldn’t hear Avitus’ plea. It was Macen’s doppelganger who spoke the answer into his brain. _‘I couldn’t leave you. Not when we’d promised to be together in this new world.’_  
  
“I’m not asking Macen,” Avitus grit out. “I’m asking SAM. SAM, _why?_ I didn’t ask for this. Did Macen?” He couldn’t imagine that Macen’s dying wish was to be recreated by the AI and beamed into Avitus’ brain.  
  
“I do not know what you mean, Pathfinder,” SAM said, and Avitus stood up abruptly, like he might go find SAM again just so he could fight it, so he could grab it by whatever wires pieced it together and shake it until it told the truth.  
  
But yelling wouldn’t get him anywhere. He hadn’t excelled as a Spectre through mindless violence. So he took a breath. “SAM, can you look through your memory? Do you have different personality partitions?”  
  
_‘Avi,’_ Macen said almost warningly. _‘I don’t think you should poke at SAM too much. He’s been through even more than we have lately.’_  
  
But SAM didn’t seem to hear Macen, or at least would not take his former partner’s word over a command from his current Pathfinder. “I have only the one personality partition,” it said. “It is updated in real time to reflect the most ideal version of myself possible, based on new stimuli.”  
  
“Are you lying to me?” Avitus asked, trying to restrain the anger that was rising out of the fear.  
  
“I would not lie to you, Pathfinder,” SAM told him. “It is most beneficial to us both for me to be honest.”  
  
There was no way for anyone to know if SAM was telling the truth, except perhaps for the man who had built it. But the late Pathfinder Ryder was not available to be asked, so Avitus had only to take SAM at its word. Inexplicably (despite the situation), he found he believed it. And that meant that SAM might be unaware itself of the personality lurking in it.  
  
_‘SAM really just has your best interest in mind,’_ Macen commented, sounding a bit sad. _‘I don’t think he_ can _do anything he knows would hurt you.’_  
  
_‘But if it doesn’t know?’_ Avitus thought in response. If it had been trying to save Macen, and then locked the memory away out of grief?  
  
“Check your memory again,” he said to SAM. “Are there _any_ partitions? Anything you don’t recognize?”  
  
There was quiet for a moment, a deathly silence while SAM apparently scanned through its entire memory core. “Yes,” it said finally. “There is a locked partition. It is dated to before you became Pathfinder. Would you like me to unlock it?”  
  
He could almost hear Macen’s apprehension. How ridiculous, that a clever, familiar AI should be able to imply that it was holding its breath, and that he should feel it so keenly. Avitus knew what he should do, because his life was going to be in SAM’s metaphorical hands for the foreseeable future and it was important that the AI was of sound mind-- as much as an artificial intelligence could be.  
  
But what he said instead: “Not right now. Thank you, SAM. That’s all.”  
  
“As you wish, Pathfinder,” SAM replied. _It_ didn’t have a physical presence in his mind or in the room, nothing to come or go, but it appeared to go back to its business, apparently to wait for Avitus to call on it again. _Macen_ , however, _did_ have a presence, and he could feel as the ghost-like personality let out a sigh of relief, nearly imperceptible to anyone not attuned to his mannerisms.  
  
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Avitus listening idly to the sounds of the ship softly humming around him, while Macen ‘said’ nothing. Avitus wondered if he might not speak again if he didn’t acknowledge that he was there, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about the prospect, one way or the other. But eventually Macen did speak up, and Avitus could not ignore him.  
  
_‘I didn’t think you might not want me here,’_ he said quietly, from somewhere to Avitus’ left. _‘I didn’t…_ mean _for any of this to happen. I didn’t mean to die and leave you to do my job.’_  
  
“I know,” Avitus said. It was silly, because this wasn’t really Macen so why did he feel the need to reassure him?  
  
_‘You don’t deserve to have me haunting you either. But… thank you, for taking on the role of Pathfinder. I really hoped you would.’_  
  
Avitus was sure that was true. He’d heard the recordings. They were burned into his mind. He could trust those, if nothing else. “I didn’t want to,” he admitted, remembering how conflicted he was when the option first came about. Oh he had known that accepting the job was only going to remind him of Macen in a way he couldn’t escape, but he hadn’t quite expected this. He wondered what would have happened if he had declined, sent the job off to the next most capable person? “Would you have spoken to them?” he asked, and he didn’t have to clarify; Macen was in his head the same way that SAM _wasn’t,_ and he knew every quiet thought and suspicion.  
  
_‘I don’t think so,’_ Macen replied. _‘SAM locked me away so that he didn’t have to deal with the trauma, but I was just bits and pieces. Your voice put me back together. I don’t think I’d exist without you, Avi.’_  
  
A humorless puff of dry laughter hissed out of Avitus, and he choked on the end of it as it tried to turn into something wetter. This was insane. He shouldn’t be _crying_ about Macen’s words as if they meant anything, when they were just SAM’s gross approximations of what Macen _might_ have really said. But still, they felt so real. There was emotion behind them.  
  
_‘Is that my emotion or yours?’_ Avitus wondered, struggling to breathe and glad he didn’t have to speak.  
  
Macen’s voice was bittersweet. _‘Maybe they’re one and the same now,’_ he said, and he laid a hand on Avitus’ shoulder. He could feel the weight there, like it was real, like Macen had a real body to go along with the dubiously-real consciousness. Eyes closed, he reached a hand up, desperate to feel him there-- and sobbed harder when he did, because it only took a moment for him to understand that it was all a trick of SAM’s ability. The AI could stimulate any part of his brain without so much as blinking; hysteria could be calmed, awareness could be heightened. And skin could be made to feel a phantom touch.  
  
He didn’t open his eyes. He knew it would shatter the illusion, and that felt just too cruel at the moment.  
  
_‘You do want me here,’_ Macen said, almost as if he were surprised.  
  
Shaking his head, Avitus said between small gasps, “I want the real Macen here.” It felt childish, but he couldn’t stop himself.  
  
Macen sighed, and Avitus could feel his regret. _‘I know,’_ he said. _‘I’m so sorry, Avi.’_  
  
Arms wrapped around his shoulders, nearly as solid as if they were the real thing. If Avitus let his mind drift, he could pretend they were home in his Citadel apartment, mourning something mundane. He could hear the specific type of foot-traffic of his neighbors coming and going at odd hours, and the occasional whoosh of a cab flying too close to the open balcony door. A warm scent lingered from something Macen had cooked several hours before; they’d been too deep in conversation to bother putting it away. The two of them were sitting up on the bed, Avitus leaning against the headboard while Macen leaned against him, chest to chest, straddling his lap, arms looped around his neck. Carefully, Avitus placed his hands on the small of Macen’s back and tugged him closer.  
  
His heart clenched. This wasn’t real; it hadn’t been real for a long time.  
  
_‘Stop,’_ he thought, trembling, and was both relieved and disappointed when it all faded away, save for Macen’s presence, which lingered nearby. The illusions had been too comforting; it would have been devastating to let it continue when it couldn’t last. And as enticing as they were, that didn’t make them any more real.  
  
“Don’t do that,” he said, and it was as much a plea as a command, because perhaps this was an aspect of SAM, but it was also far too like Macen, and they had always been equals, not ones to make demands.  
  
_‘Alright,’_ Macen said, with the feeling of a nod. _‘I just wanted you to be happy.’_  
  
Avitus shook his head. “I don’t know if I can be, Macen. But living a lie isn’t going to help. We’re in Andromeda now. Wasn’t this supposed to be a new future for us?”  
  
It didn’t exactly seem that such a thing was possible anymore, not at that moment, not with this _spectre_ so intent on reminding him of the past, but still he knew he had to try. That was what Macen had wanted, wasn’t it?  
  
_‘I still do,’_ Macen said, hovering closer but still just out of sight. _‘Avi, I only want what’s best for you.’_  
  
“And you think this is it?” He didn’t scoff; if there was any scorn in his voice, he didn’t mean it to be there. Truly he wondered if this was SAM’s idea of what Macen really thought best for him.  
  
Macen didn’t answer directly. All he said was, _‘If you want me to leave, I will.’_  
  
He could have told him to go, and be rid of the echo of his beloved so he could go back to mourning his memory. He could have gone back to normal. It would have probably been better for him, he thought. For him, for SAM, for everyone who needed the full attention of the Pathfinder.  
  
He said nothing. This wasn't a decision he could make at the moment. There was important work to do, and a long day ahead of him, because he was the Pathfinder. Right then, it was the only thing he was sure of.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks in large part to another of Pathfinder Ryder’s exploratory expeditions, a good few more of Ark Natanus’ stasis pods had been found. It wasn’t her job, but she’d taken to looking for them, as she solved her own problems and everyone elses’ across the galaxy, as if she liked being everyone’s savior. Avitus should have felt some measure of guilt for letting her do so much of the grunt work (as he was sure everyone else on the Nexus did), but he was mostly just relieved that somebody was so good at their job.   
  
He couldn’t say it was exactly the same, but she had had her fair share of loss too, hadn’t she?  According to the stories he heard when he got back to civilization, she and her father’s team had encountered trouble when they found what was supposed to be their golden world, and her father had died during the mission, passing the mantle of Pathfinder on to his daughter. But Ryder hadn’t buckled under the pressure, and she hadn’t given in to grief over losing her dad.   
  
He wondered how she did it. Was this soft-skinned little human just intrinsically stronger than him? Or was she hiding some trick?   
  
Even though she didn’t have to, she and her team agreed to help extract the pods from the uncharted corners of the alien planet, citing their relative familiarity with the place as reason for not just leaving it to the recon teams. This was important, after all, she said. These were peoples’ lives. It didn’t matter to her that they weren’t human.   
  
She told him this when she met him at Tann’s office the afternoon she arrived back with the report. “Do you want to come with us?” she asked as she finished signing the tablet Tann’s secretary had handed her. “I was gonna take a team and make sure the place was cleared out before recon got there. We took out the local dangerous wildlife the other day, but they grow back like weeds.”   
  
“Do you need my help?” Avitus asked, skeptical but willing.   
  
_‘Don’t question a golden opportunity,’_ Macen chimed from the back of his mind, still quiet in his desire to keep Avitus from overthinking his presence, but louder than he’d been all morning.   
  
Ryder laughed. “I mean, we can handle it, but I thought you might want to get out for a while. You can see our ship. I heard they’re planning to make one for you, based off the same design, so it wouldn’t hurt to get familiar with it, right?”   
  
She looked so cheerful, like a friend just inviting him out for drinks, that he couldn’t say no. Anyway, if he stayed at the Nexus he’d mostly be doing paperwork and commanding subordinates who could largely do their jobs without his interference.   
  
“Sounds great,” he said. “Do I have time to get my gear?”   
  
“Of course!” Ryder grinned and he could see (again) why people of all different species and classes were so keen on following her. “The Tempest’s got a pretty stocked armory though, in case you just felt like running out now. I saw Tann eyeing you a few minutes ago, so I’m not sure how safe it is to hang around here much longer.”   
  
Macen hummed. _‘She makes a good point, Avi. His last speech almost bored me to death.’_  
  
Avitus had to hide the half-derisive snort that escaped him, turning it into an obviously fake cough. “Then we’d best make it quick,” he said with a nod, and followed her out to the tram, resisting the urge to look over their shoulders and make sure Tann wasn’t coming after them already.   
  
His room was only a small detour from where the Tempest was docked, so instead of agreeing to meet up when he was done, Ryder simply tagged along. He didn’t tell her not to; it wasn’t as if he needed the privacy. Aside from a little bit of casual chatter and a few more details about the area the pods had been found in, they mostly kept a companionable silence until they neared Avitus’ apartment and she noticed the doorway to the new SAM node.   
  
“Hey, they’ve got the node rebuilt,” she remarked casually, craning her head to get a glimpse of it as they passed but not stopping. “So you’re all set up with it, huh?”   
  
“Mm,” Avitus hummed. He could feel Macen in the back of his mind, shifting uneasily. He continued on down the hall and let himself into his room so he could go about getting his armor and weapons.   
  
Ryder came in after him, her footsteps measured in a respectful way as she glanced around the area, which probably resembled hers quite a lot. “I take it you’re not really adjusted to it yet?” she asked wryly, apparently noting the bitter hint in Avitus’ noncommittal answer.   
  
He spared her a quick look as he gathered his things from his locker. “You could say that,” he said.   
  
She nodded. “It can definitely be weird to have someone in your head like that all the time, I know. But it gets to feeling normal after a while. The first time SAM saved my ass during a firefight pretty much cinched it for me.”   
  
“I’m sure you’re right,” he told her, although he was anything _but_ sure. Even so, he made sure to wipe the sour uncertainty off his face before turning back to her and motioning to lead the way. He didn’t want to bring her down with his mood, especially before a trip that ought to be pleasant.   
  
Luckily, he was a little distracted from his refusal to consider his current situation (beyond Macen’s occasional commentary, which he mostly ignored) by the beauty of the Tempest. ‘Beauty’ was perhaps not the right word, as while the ship was definitely elegant in design, it had a scrappy quality to it that was Ryder through-and-through: small, quick, sturdy, and exceedingly likeable.   
  
The crew all clearly considered it home, and they welcomed him in gladly with polite but genuine hellos as they passed each room on Ryder’s quick tour. They finished their round at the large meeting room at the back of the ship, where Ryder then excused herself to go check on a few matters.   
  
“We should be there within a few hours,” she said before she left. “So make yourself at home. Just stay out of the medbay if you don’t want Lexi sticking you with needles.”   
  
“Thanks for the advice,” he told her, and watched her walk off to leave him ...mostly alone. There were a few of Ryder’s crew members working around a terminal just down the stair, but they weren’t paying him any attention.   
  
_‘This would have been nice,’_ Macen echoed from somewhere over his shoulder.   
  
It would have, Avitus agreed. Having a ship like this, running rescue missions and leading a tight-knit crew into action in an attempt to make things better for their wayward people. Finding new homes for everybody. He imagined what the crew would have been like with Macen as the captain. Maybe they’d have had a few humans or asari, a salarian pilot like Ryder’s. And Avitus would have been there, always at Macen’s shoulder.   
  
_‘You can still have that. She said they’re making a ship like this for you. I’m glad. You deserve it.’_  
  
Avitus knew he would take it. Even if he didn’t want such a thing, it was his job now. But he didn’t know if he deserved it, and he wasn’t sure what he would do with it. Who would be on his crew? Maybe a few of his men from Havarl, if they weren’t tired of fighting. Would they be like Ryder, solving everyone’s problems? Or would they focus on finding their new golden world in this unexpected mess of Andromeda?   
  
At the moment, he didn’t feel especially enthused about it. There was a world for them out there, where turians could start a new life, but what did it mean to him? He hadn’t journeyed six-hundred years for his people; not really. He’d done it for Macen, and for himself. And now only one of those things was left.   
  
Macen sighed. _‘Avi. It’s going to be okay. All the plans we made, they’re not gone. You can still build the house on the mountaintop.’_  
  
“But I--!” Avitus clenched his jaw. _‘But I don’t want it without you! I don’t want anything without you.’_  
  
_‘You have me, Avi,’_ Macen said, his presence drawing closer, hovering nearby as if he wanted to touch. _‘You have all of me, and I will never leave you.’_  
  
It was a bittersweet thought he still didn’t know what to do with. They’d said that to each other before, but even back then they’d always known it might not be up to them. They’d worked dangerous jobs, and the universe was a great, wide, unpredictable place. Macen hadn’t meant to leave him, but he had anyway.   
  
_‘But I came back. I could never leave you, Avi.’_  
  
_‘That’s what I used to think,’_ Avitus said, remembering the great shift between how things were before they left the Milky Way, and how it suddenly was when he woke up alone in Andromeda and somehow knew that Macen was dead. Leaving each other had seemed so impossible before, so much that following Macen to the next galaxy wasn’t even a question, but then to find out they’d done it, they _had_ left each other? Well it apparently wasn’t so hard after all. And Avitus was just now coming to terms with it.   
  
_‘That’s not fair, Avi,’_ Macen said, pleaded. _‘I did everything I could to stay with you.’_  
  
Avitus knew that was true, but he didn’t want to want to think about it at the moment. He felt irrational and angry and didn’t want these memories Macen was sharing, of his desperation to get to Avitus’ pod when the Natanus was scathed by the Scourge, or the way he clung to consciousness long after his wounds had surpassed a blinding level of pain, all because he promised he wouldn’t leave.   
  
_‘Did you tell SAM to remake you?’_ Avitus asked, his own voice in his head echoing with the harshness of an interrogation.   
  
Macen’s presence shuddered, and Avitus could just make out the edges of some hazier memory without any words, some sort of half-conscious dying plea. ‘I’m not ready,’ it felt like. ‘I can’t fail. Avi. Avi. I can’t leave you.’ It was fainter than the whisper of a dream, but it shook Avitus to the core.   
  
_‘Macen…’_   
  
A footstep on the stair interrupted his thoughts, and he jerked his head towards Ryder, returning from her business.   
  
“Sorry,” she said, meeting his eyes almost shyly. “I didn’t mean to intrude on a moment.” He said nothing, wasn’t sure what to say, but his confusion must have showed. She nodded towards him and brought her hand up near her own head. “SAM, right? People say I always get a really intense look on my face when we’re talking. I’ve seen Hayjer do it too, so I know it’s not just me.”   
  
“I’ve… seen it,” Avitus replied, his mouth on some sort of autopilot while his brain still tried to work through what he’d just heard and the shock of Ryder’s sudden reappearance. He let out a heavy breath, careful not to let it sound like a sigh.   
  
Ryder took a few too-casual steps closer and leaned against the conference table. “Jaal says he can always tell when me and SAM are talking about my dad. Sometimes I think that’s just because angara are weirdly good at emotions. I bet they’d be able to tell what an _elcor_ was feeling.” She laughed at the absurd idea, but then returned her attention to him and cocked her head just slightly, looking almost right through him. “Are you… doing okay? About your… friend. Macen?”   
  
Avitus expected Macen to stir at the mention of his name, but his presence was quiet. It left him alone to be caught in surprise. Nobody wanted to talk about Macen since he’d gotten back to the Nexus. Even Tann had just mentioned him in passing, as a formality. It was like everyone wanted to put Macen’s life and death behind them, as just another one of the Andromeda Initiative’s many failures. Ryder wasn't the only person to speak to him about Macen, but she might be the only one who could relate in a way.   
  
“Even though I was his second, I wasn’t ever really expecting to become Pathfinder.”   
  
“Oh, I know,” Ryder said, chuckling softly. “I wasn’t _even_ my dad’s second. I’m told it was a pretty spur-of-the-moment decision. But I’m sure you’ll be a great Pathfinder; that’s not really what I was asking.”   
  
He knew what she was asking. He just didn’t know how to say that he thought he might be losing it, or that if this Macen wasn’t a hallucination then it might _drive_ him crazy. “How am I handling his death?” Avitus shook his head at himself. “I want to say I’m fine.”   
  
She smiled at him sympathetically. “Don’t we all.”   
  
A question bubbled up in Avitus and his mouth rushed to ask it before his brain could consider the idiocy of it. “Do you hear him? Your father, I mean.”   
  
The look she gave him was a little bit too suspicious. “You mean, more than my conscience telling me when I screwed up?” She shook her head. “I hear recordings of him sometimes. His voice memos and stuff.”   
  
“SAM doesn’t speak to you in his voice?”   
  
“Only when I ask,” she said, gazing at him curiously. “I never really thought about SAM being able to speak in his voice. I guess it _might_ be able to. Is that… something you want?”   
  
“No,” Avitus quickly answered. “I was just curious.”   
  
For a split second he had really considered telling her, but in the end it just felt too personal and dangerous. Ryder was becoming a good friend of his; he didn’t want to scare her with this-- no more than he wanted to think about it himself, at very least.   
  
“It’s an interesting idea,” she said in a permissive sort of way. “The SAMs can have different voices, so there’s probably no reason they couldn’t sound like… pretty much anyone you wanted. I think it’d creep me out a little bit though, since SAM’s way of speaking is so, y’know, robotic. Hearing my dad talk like that?” She laughed, cringing.  
  
Ryder’s SAM spoke up over the local short-range. “Pathfinder, the robotic speech pattern is a stylistic choice. I could adopt a more natural way of speaking, if you wished me to.”   
  
“Really?” Ryder’s brow furrowed over her wide eyes, then she looked back to Avitus and shrugged. “Well I guess maybe it wouldn’t be that weird then. I still don’t think I’d go for it though. I mean, I loved my dad, but he’s not the kind of guy I’d want in my head for the rest of my life.”   
  
“Of course,” Avitus said. “I wouldn’t want my father following me around all the time either.”   
  
Obviously, Ryder still didn’t quite understand what Avitus was going through, but her casual response seemed to break the tension. Jokingly, she said, “Now, if it was Sha’ira, maybe. The asari consort? Or I guess even like… Blasto could be fun.”   
  
They didn’t speak of serious matters for the rest of the trip, defaulting instead to discussions of their favorite Milky Way celebrities, and wondering if the angara had vid stars. Macen stayed quiet the whole time, and Avitus wondered what had scared him off. Was it remembering his death? Ryder’s interruption? Or maybe it really was just a hallucination, and Avitus had finally kicked it.   
  
He tried not to think about it for a while, or miss Macen’s presence.   
  
XxX   
  
Recovering the Natanus’ jettisoned stasis pods was fairly easy. When they arrived, they found a group of scavengers scouting out the area, but they weren’t difficult to dispense with, even when they refused to back down. It was the first fight Avitus had been in since receiving SAM, but it was over before he had a chance to notice if the AI was actually doing anything for him. On the other hand, he had noticed Ryder once with that glassy look in her eye that meant she was discussing something with _her_ SAM, probably a tactical decision of some sort. Avitus figured it made sense that they would be more communicable.   
  
After that they spent an hour guarding the location from little alien bugs, until the recon ship could arrive to retrieve the pods. It wasn’t especially eventful, but it was nice to visit a new planet that wasn’t Havarl and its perpetual twilight. He felt like he hadn’t seen the sun properly in years.   
  
Tentatively, as they waited, Macen spoke up in the back of his brain, quiet and wistful. _‘It’s lovely in its way, isn’t it?’_  
  
Avitus hummed. _‘It’s dry, at least.’_  
  
_‘I’m glad there ended up being some habitable planets after all,’_ Macen remarked. _‘I’m still hoping you’ll find a home.’_  
  
_‘I hear it’s mostly Ryder’s doing,’_ Avitus said, ignoring the other half of Macen’s comment; it was a bit too raw. _‘She figured out the terraforming. Going to cure the Scourge too, according to her team.’_ He smiled wryly, glancing toward where Ryder was leaning against one of the other pods, chatting with a young turian and an ancient krogan. He didn’t know how she got along so well with her incredibly diverse team, but it was clear that they all trusted her.   
  
Macen seemed to look at her as well. _‘She’s a good leader,’_ he said. _‘Sounds like she doesn’t let impossible things stop her.’_ A short silence followed, like he was testing waters for Avitus’ response, and then he added, _‘That was what Andromeda was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? Overcoming strange, impossible odds to secure our future?’_  
  
It sounded like Macen was trying to justify his actions, but it felt a lot like an apology, still that same pleaing tone from earlier, and Avitus realized that, despite the bitterness he wanted to hold on to, he wasn’t strictly angry at the voice in his head anymore.   
  
_‘I’m sure she’s going to inspire a lot of people,’_ Avitus said mildly, though he was sure Macen could still hear the lingering indecision over whether he would be one of those people, if he would take to her optimistic and pragmatic view on life and impossibility. At the intersection of those two things, it was hard to know how they fit together-- except, perhaps, ‘however he wanted them to’. Even that was something he still wasn’t sure about.   
  
After driving off a few more curious and unusually large bugs, the turian cargo ship arrived to pick up the pods. It took some unearthing, but before too long the whole batch of them was clear of the choking sand and stacked carefully into the ship. Avitus oversaw the whole process, holding his breath probably half the time, and letting it all out in what he hoped was a quiet, discrete sigh when they were finally safe.   
  
He didn’t ‘speak’, but Avitus could feel Macen being proud of him for the way he cared about their people.   
  
When every pod was loaded, Avitus hopped up into the back with them, fully intent on guarding them until they reached their destination, and he waved at Ryder in goodbye. Before he could close the hatch, she dashed over to him.   
  
“Leaving so soon?” she asked, eyes as bright and inviting as ever. “We can take you back to the Nexus, if you want. Honestly I think Vetra’s missed having another turian around, so I’m sure you’d be welcome.”   
  
From several yards behind, the turian woman yelled, “Hey, don’t go spreading rumors about me!” But even from the distance, Avitus could hear the warmth in her voice.   
  
“I appreciate the offer, but I have a duty to stay with my people,” he told Ryder.   
  
She nodded, giving him an understanding smile. “Of course,” she said. “I bet they’ll appreciate that.” She took a step back, as if to leave, but then gave him a look that was at once very open and also full of some deep secret. “If you ever wanna talk, pathfinder stuff, not pathfinder stuff, you know where to find me.”   
  
Avitus wondered how much she had intuited, but if ever he was going to ask her, now would not be the time. “Thank you,” he said, quite sincerely, before she went back to her crew and he shut himself into the ship’s cargo hold with the pods of his half-dead brethren.   
  
xXx   
  
The trip back to Nexus was much slower than the trip away from it, the turian ship nowhere near as agile as the Tempest, and in less of a hurry now that they had their precious cargo. Avitus stayed with the pods the majority of the time, alone except for the occasional crewman who came to check on him or give a status report. But Macen was there too, curious and hopeful every time Avitus ran a hand along one of the pods, searching for cracks and hoping he didn’t find any. More experienced technicians would deal with the stasis pods once they were back, but he couldn’t help looking over them anyway. There were his people inside, and none of them knew how badly things had gone to shit. He hated the idea of any of them waking up like he had, scared and alone, without an explanation or a friendly face.   
  
None of the pods seemed irreparably damaged; he didn’t have to dig any of turians out of their would-be coffins, so despite his anxiety over the situation, he forced himself to sit down after he’d inspected them all.   
  
_‘You did your part, Avi,’_ Macen said consolingly. It was clear he’d have done the same though, ever a champion of his people, a true community-minded turian.   
  
Someone laughed in their shared brain; Avitus wasn’t sure who it was. It could have been either of them, because they were both aware of how much Macen had wanted a chance to get away from the strict hierarchy of turian society, even if it was something he’d been a pillar of. He loved his people; they both did. It was hardwired into their species to care about the whole. But even with years of unwavering service, Macen had still been an individual, and he still wanted something apart from pure devotion to the cause.   
  
Andromeda was supposed to give him that. Palaven couldn’t judge him from this distance. Palaven would never know that he had spent his last moments selfishly wishing to have Avitus at his side.   
  
_‘You weren’t selfish,’_ Avitus said. _‘You knew people needed a Pathfinder, and you tried to make sure they had one. What else could anyone expect?’_  
  
Macen’s response was not clear in words, just a jumble of memory, but they were clear all the same. His last thoughts had not been of Avitus as _Pathfinder;_ they had just been of Avitus, and of the selfish fear of letting go before he was ready, of dying too soon. He hadn’t wanted to go; he hadn’t wanted to leave. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his people, he just knew they’d be alright. They were turians; resourceful, indomitable; of course they would be. In the end, what he’d wanted was solely for him: life, a life with his love.   
  
He was no martyr. He just wanted to live.   
  
Death was such a private moment. Perhaps every turian felt this way in their final moments, and nobody ever knew, because nobody was ever privy to those selfish thoughts they all thought would be shameful. But Avitus didn’t fault Macen for this. How could he, when it was what _he_ wanted, even in life?   
  
A thin tremble worked its way through him. His throat tightened and he had to take a deeper breath.   
  
Macen didn’t try to explain or rationalize. It was like these last moments were only fractions of memories, not focused enough to be translated to words, only to be understood on a deeper level. Avitus thought he could understand now, in the quiet of the cargo hold, surrounded by so much potential life caught in limbo. Macen hadn’t been conscious of his dying wishes; he hadn’t considered that his pleas would be translated by a desperate AI capable of fulfilling them-- capable, in a way.   
  
He hadn’t asked for this. It wasn’t his fault. But it wasn’t SAM’s fault either, that it had grasped at Macen’s thoughts in such a way. Maybe, like so much of life and death, it wasn’t truly anybody’s fault.   
  
Avitus sighed. It suddenly felt easier to deal with this situation, knowing it amounted to an accident and he didn’t have to blame anyone. Havarl had been like that too. At first, when he woke there, he’d thought the Natanus was attacked, especially when the Roekaar started to show up. Realizing that it was Scourge that had torn them apart was relieving, because natural disasters happened to everyone, and raging against them was beyond useless.   
  
But it didn’t change what had happened, what was happening. The real Macen had died, and now there was a new one lodged in his brain. He couldn’t quite think of him as ‘fake’, with how genuine and honest his words felt to Avitus. Clearly he was real-- at least as real as SAM. He just wasn’t the original. The original Macen, the one that lived in flesh and blood, not lights and wires and far-flung bytes of data, was gone. His body was gone. His soul… that was harder to say. If the spirits of the dead remained, it was in the people and places most dear to them. Maybe then Macen’s soul was with Avitus now. Did it bridge the gap between Avitus and the other personalities that lived in his brain? Would that make this Macen real and whole?   
  
(Was there a difference between a person with a spirit, and one without? Was it possible to even live without one? Did SAM have a soul? Did Alec Ryder give it true life?)   
  
Did it really… matter?   
  
It wasn’t bright in the cargo hold, but he closed his eyes, blocking off his sense of sight. The quiet hum of the ship was familiar; the light smell of grease and dust was easy to ignore. He took a deep breath and in his mind he reached out, gently pushing through the smog-like clouds of his own thoughts, until he found Macen.   
  
Macen startled, as if he was surprised to find Avitus there. He seemed lost, staring at the memories of his death, soaking in them as they swirled smoky around him.   
  
_‘Don’t worry about that,’_ Avitus said, taking hold of Macen’s arm, feeling it beneath his fingers. He was sorry he’d made Macen think about his death, when clearly it was a point of trauma they all wished to grow away from.   
  
Looking up at Avitus in confusion, Macen shifted and linked their hands together, and the mist fell away until he was left clear-eyed. _‘Sorry, Avi,’_ he said. _‘I’m still getting used to this.’_   
  
It was fine, Avitus thought. It was new territory for both of them. It would take some learning, some adjusting. But now he was pretty sure he didn’t mind trying.   
  
They walked a minute in silence through the fog, just allowing their presences to mingle, but they were snapped out of it when a crewman poked his head into the cargo hold, and Avitus opened his eyes to see the young turian blinking at him.   
  
“We’re about halfway to the Nexus, Pathfinder,” he said, sounding just the slightest bit nervous. “...Um, we have a spare bed in the crew quarters if you want to rest.”   
  
Avitus shook his head. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”   
  
The crewman nodded, and Avitus watched him leave before he bent his mind back towards Macen. Closing his eyes, Avitus could see him there, but even with his eyes open he could sense his presence. Sight unfocused on some half-distant point, he reached out his hand and waited, sighing out a soft held breath when he felt the light scratch of claws against his palm.   
  
It wasn’t the same, not remotely the same as having Macen there with him, corporeal and alive. If he was there, it would have meant he’d survived, succeeded, that they weren’t at the mercy of SAM and happenstance. But it was something, and for the consequence of failure, Avitus had to admit that it could be worse.   
  
_‘It could be better,’_ Macen said, the edge of guilt still clinging to his voice. But Avitus didn’t take it.   
  
“It could,” he agreed. “Maybe if we work at it, it will be.”   
  
A sense of relief radiated from Macen, glad that Avitus wasn’t pushing him away, and that he wasn’t angry anymore. Not the way he had been, at least. Not at _him,_ or at SAM. He moved closer, wedged himself right up against Avitus in a way that made Avitus’ mind feel full and warm, a presence that spread down his neck to his shoulders.   
  
_‘Then let’s do that, Avi,’_ he said. _‘Whatever it takes, whatever you need. I’ll be here for you.’_  
  
“Whether I like it or not, hmm?” Avitus murmured, but it was only the last bit of pessimism showing its stubborn face. He didn’t mean anything cruel by it, and he knew that Macen could tell. Still, he pulled Macen closer, wrapping himself around his ghostly partner, feeling the sturdy pressure in his arms and sighing heavily through it.   
  
He felt Macen melt into him, not in quite a literal way, but more fluid and full and warm than any real body could be. _‘I did promise you. We were going to take on Andromeda together. Only now_ you’re _the Pathfinder.’_  
  
_Because you failed; because you died and left it to me and now it’s my responsibility and I never expected to have to do this without you, and what am I supposed to do now?_  The thoughts tumbled around in his head unbidden, but he took a breath and tried to force them down, because consciously he knew they were unfair. It was just going to take some time to adjust, to accept this situation for what it was. The fears and the deep feeling of betrayal still lingered, but they weren’t what he _meant_ to think, not at all what he meant to respond. Avitus knew now… well, he _wasn’t_ alone. And luckily, Macen didn’t mind the jumbled worries and accusations that jumped to the fore before he could organize his thoughts. He waited for Avitus to compose himself.   
  
Breathing evenly, Avitus bowed his head in a slow nod. “I am,” he said. “And I’ll do my best.”   
  
_‘Then lead the way,’_ Macen said with a grin, and Avitus could feel it in his own heart like the joy was his. Maybe it was; maybe that’s what this all was. Maybe this Macen was just SAM’s memory of the man reflecting on Avitus’ emotions. Or maybe the humans were right and he was being haunted, Macen’s love too strong to let him go. Either way, it felt real in the ways that mattered most. Regardless of where it came from, it was an opportunity, and it did nobody any good if he turned away from it.   
  
If nothing else, having Macen so close meant he couldn’t lose him again, not unless he were lost himself.   
  
_‘I won’t let that happen,’_ Macen said, and Avitus knew he meant it. Whether conscious or by accident, he’d gone to great lengths to stay by Avitus’ side already. _‘There’s nothing I won’t do for you, Avi.’_  
  
Avitus really did believe it, and finally, with Macen so close and a new life for his people drawing nearer, he felt for the first time since waking in their new home galaxy that things might actually be alright.   


**Author's Note:**

> And that's that for now. I have two or three more ideas, but those'll be for another time. Thanks very much for reading; let me know if you have any thoughts!


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